Happy New Year!

Woohoo, Happy 2010 folks :)

I've started the new year off with a bang and I've made a card already....yippee.

This card fulfils the challenges as below

• The Pink Elephant #47 - Choice of 2 sketches
• Cards for Men #2 - Use the theme 'New'
• Little Paper Shop #48 - Colours of light blue, Navy and silver
• 365 Cards Day 188 - Use a flock texture
• Fussy & Fancy Friday Challenge #1 - New
• Daring Cardmakers - New beginnings
• Paperplay #46 - New Beginnings
• 3 Clovers Thursday #45 - Celebration
• Cupcake Craft Challenge #71 - Celebration
• Charisma Cardz - Celebration
• Secret Crafter #64 - New Beginnings
• Rosie Dee's #61 - Open Theme
• Creative card Crew #41 - Anything Goes
• My Time To Craft #72 - Anything Goes
• By The Cute & Girly - New
• Rainbow Lady's Challenge #84 - New

The base card is a metallic silver and I have cut a mat in a navy blue sparkle cardstock. The papers are from Heidi Swapp and it is the first time I have brought myself to cut into it. The birdie ribbon in the centre was cut from a flocked sheet, it feels lovely just like Fuzzy Felt when I was a kid :) The circular pram is a cardstock sticker with the addition of a birdie rub-on. This is matted onto more of the navy card and mounted on 3D foam. The sentiment are stickers from a co-ordinated sticker set.

I've gone off the boil in combining challenges for the last few months and I'm going to try and make a concerted effort to do more challenges again. I really enjoyed doing this for some months last year and I felt it gave me more focus in making cards for specific reasons. I start level 2 of my college course next week so hopefully I'll be able to fit more crafting into my schedule and be more disciplined with myself instead of vegging out in front of the TV when I'm tired.

Oh my gosh a Card !!!

Stop the world I want to get off !!! The last couple of weeks have been so hectic at times I haven't known what day of the week it is. The card is for my brother in law to be. I had 3 male cards already made but Paul didn't like any of them so I had to make a card quick. I made this card on Monday, scanned it in and posted it and today is the first day I have been on my computer to be able to blog it.

The card uses the sketch layout for Day 120 over at 365 Cards (I've now got 42 of their challenges to catch up with and I was doing so well :( ....... ) and challenge #4 at Pile it On to use at least 4 buttons. Charisma Cardz also has a challenge for buttons this week so I have added this one over there too :) The challeng this week at Daring Cardmakers is Blue and Green so I have entered it for this also.

The base card is a textured cardstock from The Papermill. The patterned papers and decoupage are from a Daisy & Dandelion pack from Papermania. I bought a couple of these from the Glitterpot and this is the first time I have used any of them. There are 6 layers in some places and it is very raised. Definitely a large letter stamp on this card I can tell you!

The sentiment is from my stash, matted onto brown card and raised on 3d foam. The buttons are from Papermania and I have poked brads through the holes, a technique favoured my one of my crafty friends Lisa and looks really effective.

Thank you for the good wishes for Paul's Uncle Roy. He has recovered from the heart attack but is still in hospital at the moment. They think he may have developed type 2 diabetes and he has had to be injected with insulin twice a day. He has to see a specialist diabetic nurse on Monday who will be able to give us more information. In the meantime Grandad is in a bit of a state and has needed a lot of TLC, as well as practical help with food shopping, bills and money as Roy did all the finances. It's been a bit hectic but one way or another we'll get through !

365 Cards, Spoonful of Sugar, Charisma, DCM & TPE

Isn't it great when you start off with an idea for a card and it just grows, and fulfils 4 challenges at the same time ??

This morning I was going through a box of embellishments and found an unopened packet of brown embellishments from Jolees. I put it to one side as I wanted to use the buttons to go with the latest sketch for challenge 54 at A Spoonful of Sugar.

Charisma Cardz has a new challenge today to use the colours brown and pink. An older challenge on 365 Cards for Day 90 was to use only 2 colours on your card (stamped images could be in black ink on white card) and then to top it all off Daring Card Makers has a challenge to use 5 of one item.

The bottom swirly paper is an offcut from a freebie magazine paper, the top pink one is from the Two Scoops pack by Basic Grey. The chocolate swirly paper is from Craftwork Cards and was a gift from my very good friend Sarn.

The stamped image is from Clare Curd's Signature Range by Papermania. I have coloured it in with Marvy Le Plume pens. It was matted ontoa scrap of chocolate brown cardstock. The sentiment is from Let's Make Cards. The ribbons and buttons were from the Jolees pack, the checked ones are fabric with a clear button on top and they were all threaded and had 3d foam already to go. I have an idea that I got them from a clearout on Ebay but can't for the life of me tell you how long I have had them. Isn't it great when you fall in love with old stash? :)

08/06 I have just entered this card in for The Pink Elephant colour challenge of Pink Brown & White. I hope it is allowed as I made it only a few days earlier. I've never backlinked a card before but as it is the EXACT colours and wasmade so recently I hope it will be allowed.